She spent 17 years wrongfully in prison for her 3-year-old's death. Now she helps others.

After a wrongful conviction of arson and murder, Kristine Bunch spent 17 years in prison before being exonerated. Now she helps others who are in her shoes.
Jenna Watson, jenna.watson@indystar.com

Kristine Bunch poses for a portrait in the IndyStar studio, Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2018. Bunch was wrongfully convicted in 1996 of murder and arson for allegedly starting a fire that killed her 3-year-old son. She served 17 years in prison before it was revealed evidence used to convict her had been fabricated. She was exonerated and released in 2012 but has struggled to rebuild her life with no help from from the state that sent her to prison.(Photo: Jenna Watson/IndyStar)

The holidays remind her of the day she was released from prison, 17 years after she was wrongfully convicted in the death of her son, ending a seeming lifetime of missed Christmases, birthdays and other milestones in the lives of her loved ones.

The season also reminds Bunch that, in one narrow sense, she might have been better off had she not been exonerated.

Convicted criminals in Indiana receive an array of post-release assistance. The state provides parolees and people on probation with such things as help with job placement, housing, resume training, Medicaid, food stamps and bus passes.

But people who are falsely convicted? People the system fails?

Nothing.

"When I walked out exonerated, there was no programming here in Indiana," she said. "I couldn't even get help with my resume."

Her adjustment was rough. If it weren't for the help of family and friends, she said, she would have ended up homeless.

Now Bunch is trying to change that by forming a nonprofit to help others, and pushing for legislative change.

Six years have passed since the Indiana Supreme Court overturned her conviction and the Decatur County prosecutor refrained from taking her to trial again.

Bunch was convicted in 1996 of murder and arson for allegedly starting a fire that killed her 3-year-old son, Anthony. She was sentenced to 60 years in prison.

It wasn't until a decade later, after a supporter reached out to the Center on Wrongful Convictions at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, that attorneys learned evidence indicating the fire was intentionally set in two places had been fabricated by two investigators and an ATF analyst.

More years would pass before the Indiana Court of Appeals overturned her conviction on March 21, 2012, citing the bogus arson claims. Four months later, on August 8, 2012, the Indiana Supreme Court upheld that ruling by declining to take up the state's challenge.

Bunch was released on Sept. 1, 2012, but still faced new charges filed by the prosecutor. Then, just eight days before Christmas that year, the prosecutor dismissed the new charges and Bunch was finally out from under the legal nightmare.

Bunch has a federal lawsuit pending against the two fire investigators and the ATF analyst for their alleged roles in falsifying a report to make it appear the fire had been started with a flammable liquid, and for allegedly hiding the initial analysis that rebuked that theory.

But when she was released she faced a new challenge: restarting a life that had been put on hold.

"When you walk out after a wrongful conviction, you just have a blank," she said. "There is no conviction. It looks like you were on vacation for 15, 17, 20, 25 years. You have no way to explain that gap and it leaves you lacking in all areas because you don't have a credit score. You don't have renter's history. You don't have a driver's license ... You're literally starting over."

If not for the support of her brother and friends, Bunch said, she would have been alone and adrift as she tried to start over.

It's a problem, advocates say, that is more common and troubling than many people realize.

Bunch, who now makes her home in the Indianapolis area, could be bitter or angry. Instead, she is channeling her emotions and energy to help others trying to recover from wrongful convictions.

Kristine Bunch was sentenced to 60 years in 1996 for the arson death of her 3-year-old son in Decatur County. She was exonerated in 2012.(Photo: File photo)

Two years ago, Bunch started the nonprofit, Justis 4 Justus, to help fill a need she experienced.

"We have a girl that just got out after 27 years," she said, "and we sent her a winter coat and a couple of outfits because she had nothing when she walked out."

Justis 4 Justus is unique because it can provide tax breaks for professionals who donate services.

"So if a dentist offers services to an exoneree," she explained, "we can give them a tax letter for those services, which often when they come out, they need to see a dentist or a doctor right away."

Help from family, volunteers and organizations like Justis 4 Justus is often the only support network for exonerees in Indiana, said Fran Watson, a professor at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law in Indianapolis and director of the Wrongful Conviction Clinic.

Watson consulted with lawyers who led the legal fight to exonerate Bunch. She said Indiana leaders must take action to assist wrongly convicted Hoosiers rebuild their lives.

"This isn't an issue that's going to bankrupt the state," said Watson. "This is a very specific group of people who have been wronged by the system."

The National Registry of Exonerations, lists Bunch and 34 others exonerated of wrongful convictions in Indiana since the early 1990s. While the most attention typically falls to cases where people are cleared by DNA evidence, Waston said many other wrongful convictions are the result of faulty science, eye-witness missidentification, false confessions, inadequate legal representation, and misconduct by investigators and prosecutors.

Bunch and others are pushing Indiana lawmakers to create a compensation package for the wrongfully convicted — something offered by 32 states and the District of Columbia, according to the Innocence Project.

Kristine Bunch, left, with her mother Susan Hubbard, right, talks to reporters after she was released on Aug. 22, 2012. She was wrongfully convicted in the 1996 arson death of her 3-year-old son.(Photo: Charlie Nye/Star file photo)

The packages vary widely by state. Many include both financial payments and access to services, such as counseling, free tuition for college or trade schools, child care, and job training and placement.

A state-by-state list posted online by the Innocence Project shows that compensation ranges from a one-time payment of $20,000 in New Hampshire to $80,000 for every year a wrongly convicted person spent behind bars in Texas.

Kentucky, like Indiana, offers no compensation, but Ohio offers $40,000 for every year of incarceration. Michigan pays $50,000 per year. Illinois uses a scale that starts at $85,000 a year for persons incarcerated fewer than five years, and maxes out at $199,000 a year for those jailed more than 14 years.

State Rep. Greg Steuerwald, R-Avon, introduced legislation last year that called for a payment of $25,000 per year of incarceration for people exonerated by DNA evidence. But the bill died in the House Committee on Courts and Criminal Justice without any action.

Steuerwald said he plans to file new legislation in 2019, but is still working on details.

Bunch is cautiously optimistic, but hopes for a comprehensive package.

"I want us to do something that hasn't been done or encompasses the whole picture," said Bunch, who earned associate and bachelor degrees through Ball State University while in prison.

To make a real difference, she said, lawmakers will have to do more than "throw some money at them."

"Let's put part of it in retirement, because they haven't been paying into Social Security. Let's give them insurance for a year, job training, education, everything they could need in a year so when somebody walks out, they have people filling up their tool box, so they can step back into life. They can get a job. They can get a place to live. They can get everything they need to survive."

Watson, the law professor and director of the Wrongful Conviction Clinic, said she hopes the new legislation gains some traction at the Statehouse.

"Compensating these victims is one step toward righting the wrong that turned their lives upside down. They deserve to be compensated to help get their lives righted. But money is just a start," she said.

"They've basically lost decades of their lives in prison for something they didn't do."

Contact Tim Evans at 317-444-6204 or tim.evans@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter: @starwatchtim